Bruce Whitfield Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Sanlam’s short-term insurance subsidiary, Santam, has compiled a short-list of replacements for managing director Leon Vermaak. Vermaak is moving to Sanlam as chief executive in just under two months, and his replacement at Santam must be identified by the beginning of May. Vermaak has been MD at Santam for just […]
Marianne Merten For the second time in less than a month the Cape High Court has handed down guilty verdicts in two brutal gang rapes and stabbings but only one teenaged girl survived to testify. Public attention focused on just the one case, although there are striking similarities: each girl was repeatedly raped, stabbed, had […]
As the Dance Umbrella reaches its climax, Jill Waterman looks at the main players centre stage After a highly successful week of South African and international performances, one can convincingly say that dance is alive and challenging but, sadly, still financially unwell. Audience support is encouraging and perhaps civil society is beginning to realise that […]
#Duncan Mackay Donetsk isn’t what it used to be. Sergey Bubka can’t help noticing it during his brief visits. His apartment on the 13th floor on “The Street Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the USSR” is untouched, but Bubka has had an extra-thick wall of brick built in the vestibule and put up a new […]
Jaspreet Kindra The word has been passed around in the hijacking circles of Alexandra that Democratic Party MP Vincent Gore’s car is not “hot” it is fitted to enable a disabled person to drive it. Gore grins when he talks about his “unofficial meeting” with the Alex hijackers he is attempting to rehabilitate. He was […]
Timothy Wood american notes New York April 16 is the most important day in the United States calendar. At no other time is the nation as united in its purpose as when tax returns are to be filed. President George Bush has a deft appreciation for the populist possibilities surrounding April 16, specifically tax cuts. […]
Michelle Pressend Crossfire It’s a shame that 90% of the Draft Minerals Development Bill debate is on mineral rights and the discretionary powers of the minister to grant those rights, when mining by its nature has caused huge environmental damage and has severely affected the health of workers and surrounding communities. One would think that […]
Alex Sudheim Though celebrating only its third anniversary this year, the Southern Cross Music and Outdoor Experience has made the leap from cute and cuddly toddler to strapping youth in a burst of accelerated growth. Originally conceived as a purely folk festival for diehard hippies with a penchant for softly strummed guitars among rolling green […]
Letters to the best man Chez Uhuru 228 Musgrave Road iThekwini To:Dr Essop Pahad The Presidency Union Buildings Tshwane Dear Dr Pahad, It is with a sense of both accomplishment and distress that I write to inform you of my efforts to fend off the counter-revolution. As you have warned, the presidency is being subjected […]
Steven Friedman worm’s eye view Freedom is of little use unless you know what to do with it. Good democrats are, no doubt, expected to react with righteous indignation to the police who misled journalists about a fake hijacking. This democrat finds that a little difficult. Yes, police representatives who confirmed a leak when they […]
Jaspreet Kindra Johannes van Wyk clutches his crutch firmly for support each time he rises from a chair as he goes about his household chores. Certified disabled, he has lost the use of his left leg. His cheekbone is also shattered. His scars bear testimony to his three-year incarceration in African National Congress detention camps […]
Grant Shimmin athletics The three track and field meets that justify Andy Norman telling Athletics South Africa officials that they have “the premier circuit in the Southern Hemisphere” are upon us, starting on Friday night at Roodepoort. In keeping with previous editions of the Engen Grand Prix Summer Series, the first meet, which has traditionally […]
Roger Ronnie Right to reply The article “Water contract won’t mean job losses” (March 2 to 8) hid the truth about Suez-Lyonnaise, the multinational company that Johannesburg unicity has privatised the city’s water to. The article gave the company’s representative, Jameel Chand, free rein to make unchallenged and untrue assertions about the company’s poor track […]
camp Faith ka-Manzi It is raining in Cato Crest, a squatter camp outside Durban bordering the Umkhumbane river. Parents are cautioning their children to wear shoes and to look out for live electricity wires. The squatters divert electricity illegally from nearby Cato Manor and their uninsulated cabling has caused the deaths of at least 11 […]
Tim Wood Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has made it clear that she is satisfied with proposed mining legislation despite industry protests. Unmoved by the current brouhaha, the minister says the legislation must be judged by its ability to deliver jobs, protect the environment and deliver shareholder returns. At a breakfast in […]
Deon Potgieter boxing The irrepressible Baby Jake Matlala is the most popular boxing world champion produced in South Africa in 23 years. This title was bestowed upon him recently following a nationwide competition held by Old Buck Gin, who awarded him with a special Old Buck Belt. The belt is a prestigious memento in any […]
Lynda Gilfillan ‘I have an overwhelming rage at completely innocent things and people. Like my son jumping on my back in the pool and wanting to drown him because I get so angry, and the dog eating chicken eggs and me wanting to beat the dog to a pulp.” Mark Coetzee (45) has a finely […]
Despite two reports recommending the inclusion of vulnerable workers in society in unemployment benefits, a new Bill expressly excludes them Marianne Merten By excluding South Africa’s approximately one million domestic workers from unemployment benefits, the government is failing in its constitutional duty to extend social security to all, says the Black Sash. The NGO will […]
Paul Kirk Durban’s first citizen made his own small contribution to cleaning up the city’s beachfront this week when he took on a group of what he described as “half-naked loafers drinking in public”. The men he confronted were members of the South African Police Service. While going for his usual afternoon jog along the […]
Barry Streek, Marianne Merten and Glenda Daniels Documents in the possession of the Mail & Guardian show that Bheki Jacobs, the man the presidency sought to rubbish this week as the alleged source of information suggesting wrongdoing in the R43-billion arms deal, is a highly trained intelligence operative who, until the end of last year, […]
Film heartthrob Brad Pitt says marriage to actress Jennifer Aniston is "great" and that the two are making plans to have babies.
HILARY GUSH, Cape Town | Thursday THE government plans to license only one full-service telecoms operator as a rival to monopoly Telkom when its exclusivity expires in the next two years, but foresees a third licence within five years. Outlining telecoms policy ahead of Telkom’s initial public offering in the fourth quarter, Communications Minister Ivy […]
AN endangered African Wild Dog that was caught in a snare and almost lost its penis, is recovering well and will be able to procreate, says veterinarian Dr Kobus Raath. The dog was ensnared at the Mthethomusha Game Reserve near Nelspruit last week. Rangers found the dog while taking tourists on a game drive. The […]
VETERAN politician Vause Raw has died in Durban after a long illness. He would have turned 80 this year. Raw rose to prominence in the now-defunct United Party (UP) as the party’s fortunes waned after it was voted out of office in a landslide defeat by the National Party in 1948. He later became a […]
EIGHT Russians and 20 Kenyans held hostage aboard two fishing boats in Somalia have been ordered to pay to secure their release, the Russian foreign ministry said. The fishing vessels, Gorizont-1 and Gorizont-2, were seized by armed men in the port of Kismayo, in southern Somalia, in circumstances that remain unclear. Somali fishermen employed by […]
SOUTH Africa’s young Aids activist, 12-year old Nkosi Johnson, was on Tuesday still in a semi-comatose condition at his adopted mother’s house in Melville, Johannesburg. Gail Johnson said Nkosi had a major seizure again on Friday and spent the night in a local hospital. He was discharged on Saturday. Johnson said his vital signs were […]
NAMIBIAN Finance Minister Nangoloh Mbumba has tabled a national budget of 9.8bn Namibian dollars (about $1.255bn), with an estimated deficit of 3.6% of the country’s gross domestic product. The deficit is 0.5% greater than last year’s, with Mbumba attributing the increase to a slump in the national currency against the dollar and the euro, and […]
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has thrown vote rigging charges back at his main election rival, claiming he would have won by an even greater margin had he not been the victim of fraud. Museveni was responding to allegations by rival candidates, independent observers and foreign journalists that polling had been marred by serious electoral […]
SOME 80% of victims of flooding in the southern Malawi district of Nsanje more than a month ago have yet to receive emergency food aid. Nsanje, which borders Mozambique, and three other southern districts were battered by some of the worst flooding in living memory, leaving some 60 000 people homeless. The UN World Food […]
MICHEL CARIOU, Kinshasa | Thursday THE Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) peace process faces a crucial test on Thursday when five countries whose troops have been engaged in bloody warfare for the past two-and-a-half years are slated to begin disengaging their forces. Under deals reached in Kampala and Harare last year and at UN Security […]
THE cholera death toll in KwaZulu-Natal has reached 140 after a 70-year-old woman from the Esihlangwini area died at the Mosvold hospital, the provincial health department said. A total of 70558 people have been infected by the disease since mid-August last year. Since Tuesday, 797 new infections were reported, down on the 1007 new infections […]
ABC could soon become the network where bust meets lust.